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“Tony Fernandes has dropped a broad hint that he is bailing out of the Formula One team Caterham. It is believed that Fernandes has already sold the Formula One arm of his operation, after four and a half troubled years.”

“As part of the changes current team principal Cyril Abiteboul is expected to return to Viry to help bolster Renault’s F1 operation, at the behest of Red Bull. A new management structure will be introduced at Caterham.”

“I was 15 or 16 when the racing bug bit me. I started go-karting when I was 15 and by 16 I had my own kart and had started to think about what my target could be if I followed the racing road. I’d developed a deep fondness for racing.”

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Crumbs. Rumour mill in full flow over Caterham today. Usually impeccable source reckons it's about to be bought by a very familiar name.

Comment of the day

There’s a lot still to be clarified about the FIA’s unpopular new standing restarts rule:

Is the procedure the same as the start, with the five red lights, etc…?
What happens if someone stalls?
Are they allowed to wave their arms and have the restart aborted? What happens then?
Are the pit crews allowed out onto the circuit to restart the car?
Can the marshals give him a push start?
Does the field go round again for another lap before lining up on the grid again?
Will the safety car lead them round?
If not, does the lead driver lead the pack round?
If so is that still a Safety Car lap?
If the stalled driver gets going again will they be able to reclaim their place on the ‘grid’ or do they have to (re)start from the back?
If the stalled driver doesn’t get going can he restart from the pit lane?

I understand that because the race has already started, then no, stalled cars probably won’t be allowed to continue, same as if they’d spun out on track, stalled, and can’t get going again. But by turning a rolling safety car restart into a standing start that is, to all intents and purposes, the same as the race start, with procedures presumable identical to the race start, and with lots of cars brimming with a massive amount of potential energy in close proximity, some of the rules are going to have to be re-drawn to cater for this kind of thing.

But I bet they’ve not bothered to address any of these questions. They’ve maybe thought that these might occur, but I doubt they’ve given it any real serious thought. After all it’s been, what, a week since this was first announced and it’s already gone through.

Standing restarts just add a whole load of unnecessary problems by implementing a solution to a problem that never ever existed.@Ajokay

On this day in F1

Here he is inspecting the car with Patrick Head, Adrian Newey and David Brown, then being greeted at the circuit by the thousands of fans who showed up and driving laps of the short track. The cameras didn’t catch his spin into the gravel at Clearways during the test.

@strontium is that Thai for Red Bull I guess? What about a latin name? “Toro Rojo”… Naaah too similar to Toro Rosso.
But honestly, if they have such a good rookie field, they should go for 3 teams .. and their own engine (built by Infiniti or Nissan of course)

@omarr-pepper that’s Malay, given that Caterham is Malaysian-registered. Not sure what Red Bull is in Thai; the energy drink itself is sold as Krating Daeng in Thailand and Indonesia, and I think that pre-dates the international Red Bull company being established, but I’m not sure if it means the same thing

That would actually make me root for McLaren. Absolutely unthinkable ~25 years ago, when they were the arch-enemy and the Ferrari-loving 9-year-old me wished them everything bad. How times have changed.
But yes, keep Kamui in F1, give him a car with which he has a chance to fight for positions, give him a McLaren-drive. Or a Force-India, that would be even further up the field and still possible if Hülk moves somewhere.

@vettel1
In fairness to Kamui he was faster than Perez but like the Hulk he can’t topple Sergio in the race because of his superior ability to preserve Pirelli tyres. He performed as well as the Hulk has done this year against Sergio Perez.

But Koba is more entertaining in races, and much funnier and humorous outside the cockpit. So the reason I wish for a cockpit for him is not that I think he is faster or better than Perez, he probably isn´t. I just like Kobayashi, he is a fine guy, so I´m just hoping there´s a way for him to stay around. And I do know team´s (have to) choose their drivers by other criteria than I choose my favourite drivers.

The funniest thing I read all day was a suggestion that Dutch GP2 team MP Motorsport could buy F1. If that happens, I’m going to look for jobs in Germany, because the Dutch have been shamed enough by Spyker.

I wonder if the familiar name is a privateer or a recent manufacturer. I’d love to see Renault ditch Red Bull as their main team and decide to make a full return, even though it makes little sense buying Caterham rather than Lotus.

It would almost make more sense for Mateschitz to buy the team! But I really hope for something a bit more interesting, someone who will try and make another step forward. Marussia shows this year that it can be done.

CODT sums up all the amount of work needed to make such a stupid thing “work” (if that could be called “work” at all).

It’s such a vast amount of time lost for a race… Races will many Safety cars instead of comfortably finishing before the 2 hour mark could lead up to less than complete races. So, basically, more time to spent watching cars, marshalls and teams get prepared, plus less laps, rounds up a rubbish deal for the fans, casual or hardcore…

I wonder how many will line up in the wrong grid spot. Is that a penalty? Will lining up in the grid take longer so they get this right? Will that cause the first couple of rows to overheat? Do we just stop on the grid at the first chance and shut off? Or is that only if Charlie Whiting thinks it’s really bad out on track? If we stop can we use tyre warmers? Do we get a roll-off lap to warm the brakes and tyres? Does that count against race distance? Do you get to change tyres or go into the pits? Can I change my nose that got a little bit damaged in the fracas? What if my sparky titanium plates need fixin’?

Imagine how annoying it will be to have this explained to us on TV every time a safety car is called for.

Totally agree with COTD. All these questions need answers and procedural rules to be written – which will then get inadvertently broken and racing will be disrupted again by someone having to sit on the naughty step.
As you say @scalextric, imagine trying to explain that to a casual viewer.
And what about rain?
Don’t I remember a SC being used to lead cars around at a safe speed in the wet so that the cars could try to shift some of the water off the course? I assume that won’t be possible any more.

Who ever does buy the team we currently know as Caterham, they can’t do much of worse job than Fernandes. It’s been a recovery run the whole way from him. I had high hopes for that team for some reason. I have a ‘Lotus Racing’ cap from the first year that I bought at a race – that’ll never be worth anything.

A 2nd tweet from Will Buxton about Caterham-
“All I’ll say is that, if true, I don’t imagine they’ll be getting their hands on Mercedes engines anytime soon.”

At a ‘guess’, Its going to be a manufacturer badged team, Not one thats’s already supplying engines for 2015 but one thats run by someone who’s run F1 teams before & a name that will be big for F1 & who currently own a racing premises not that far away from Caterham F1.

I think the new owners are tied to someone already competing. So, Renault, Red Bull, Ferrari/FIAT, Honda, Mclaren. A bit far out, I would also guess VW/Porsche or BMW, given some rumors this year. Now that I think about it, it could be Infiniti, since their sponsoring will end in 2015.

Two things:
*What amazing support for Mansell considering it was just a test run. And how respectful were the fans? They reminded me of a Japanese crowd when they all went respectfully silent all of a sudden. Mansellmania!